"I really like John Denver"

I went on a road trip!  Where to, you ask?

Dun nuh nuh nuh Nuh nuh nuh nuh CATMON!

Look!  I outlined my trip!

So, that wonderful couple I met at the Outpost weren't just telling some tall tales, which, to be honest, I was still a little scared about after a series of texts landed me here:

All by myself for 45min.  It is a little shady, despite the flashy red paint (more red; AND that kid is wearing a yellow shirt to the left!  SCORE!), and the texts informing me to "be safe," "make sure you are paying attention to the people around you," etc. were not helping.  Look at this ridiculous bus at the station:

I totally creeped out the poor girl in the foreground. 

"Mmm hmmm.  I wanna go wherever the J Girls is goin'," is what the ad firm associated with this bus must have hoped people would be thinking.  My guess is that be it Jeepney or bus, or cart, people would ride regardless of whether or not there were an artistically rendered Yota or Bratz doll-inspired landscape on the side.  I just wouldn't enjoy looking at it so dang much.  (BTW If hard times have hit the Lisa Frank empire, I think she's got an easy rebirth here.) Our bus looked nothing like that.  It was just an old school bus, basically, which made me feel better than the tourists leaving on the big, fancy air-conditioned ones.

Suck it, Japanese tourists.  Anywho, the ride was something like two hours.  And, then I ate some barbecue.

I had somehow avoided eating this, the staple of Cebu.  Alright, so when I was younger, I used to eat dog treats because the smell always held such incredible promise.  It never delivered; they were dogs treats; it makes sense.  The barbecue here just is divine.  I was sad to keep eating it because all I could think was that there is nothing quite like this perfect flavor at home.  But, then again, it is also associated with a very high rate of gout in Cebu as well.


Jovil's family's house was right on the edge of the sea.  

They raise a few turkeys.

I watched the moon rise, and it was freaking beautiful.  After meeting his family a little, who are all completely wonderful, funny and warm people,  

One of his 7 aunts, who said she really likes John Denver, which is where I let her down about how uninteresting the  geography of Chicago is; that we don't have mountains; and that the song is about Colorado.  I need to go on.  This woman is one of my favorite people I've met this whole time.  I cannot entirely explain it, but it does help that she said she would have believed me had I said I was 6 feet tall when she asked.  

I went to bed.

In a room with this thing:

Luckily, I didn't notice her until the morning, especially since those raging eyes were poised to look at me while I slept.


In the morning, I ate this is a delicacy, which is more associated with Catmon in particular, budbud kabog. Millet and coconut milk rolls wrapped in banana leaves.  

Scarlet enjoying her mango, which is a "perfect pairing" with the budbud.

And, that was breakfast.  We still had a big food day to go.  We left for the RIVER RESORT!!  Because it is up in the mountains, you have to ride on one of these things to get there.  This is the part where I hope that my parents have ebbed back into passive disinterest about their daughter's trip to the other side of the world and have stopped checking the blog in order for me to retain my holier-than-thou standpoint in discussions on how Papa D's new hobby of bike riding just isn't safe.

Look, ma!  No helmets!  And, this shit was high up.  I took a useless photo, trying to capture the height, but it just didn't do any justice.  Even if I have to forfeit my standpoint, it was worth it.  We ended up here:

This little boy looks just like my nephew Vince.

River massage.

Hot spring!

Hotter spring!

Hawt spring!

After all of that, we came back for a huge feast.  One of the nieces is moving away to Texas to go teach special education, so they had a going away party for her.  I ate.  And ate.

2 other awesome aunts processing seafood goop for the wonderful calamari.  Mmmm.  

It was still oinking. 

They were still attacking.

John Denver's mistress was still plating.

Wish I were still devouring. 

Desert.  Gulaman?

Don't think I would have that desert again; the texture was sort of exactly what I don't want to be eating, but the taste was really good.  I think texture will almost always win out over taste for me.


It has rained a couple times in the last 12 hours, which means bugs come inside the apartment, which means that I got very little sleep, filled with nightmares about ants and cockroaches, and that I had to kill an actual huge cockroach again this morning.  Just bleached off the bottom of my dainty little ballerina flats with the little bows and headed off to work in them.  Squish. Squish.  Squish.  


Red ant bites on bottom of foot=ITCH!!  I don't recommend them.  Oh shit; did I get the chiggas?